Universal 1665: SVO ⇒ rheme in an immediately postverbal position or after an unstressed element
Original
In SVO languages, the usual place of the focused rheme is after the verb either in an immediately postverbal position or after an unstressed element.
Standardized
IF basic word order is SVO, THEN the usual place of rheme is after the verb either in an immediately postverbal position or after an unstressed element.
1. Cf. the statement for SOV languages: # 1669. 2. In Dezsö’s proposal, then, immediate proximity to the finite verb is crucial to the occurrence of rhematic constituenets, and their relative positions with respect to the verb (before or after the verb) is determined by the type of language, namely SOV or SVO. Kim (#1655) made a similar observation independently from Dezsö’s studies (Kim 1988: 147).
1. Cf. the statement for SOV languages: # 1669. 2. In Dezsö’s proposal, then, immediate proximity to the finite verb is crucial to the occurrence of rhematic constituenets, and their relative positions with respect to the verb (before or after the verb) is determined by the type of language, namely SOV or SVO. Kim (#1655) made a similar observation independently from Dezsö’s studies (Kim 1988: 147).